[busket68]

It runs fine on my 1ghz iMac, and it runs SURPRSINGLY well on the 800mhz tibook.

- Rob

[ARK]

Well guys.. the game is out now. Anyone done anymore testing? It would be nice to get a list going of final performance tweaks.

[emark]

OK, i'm probably missing the obvious, but, want to do some benchmarking and needing some direction.

A2DAJ: downloaded your app and it tells me that no such folder for UT exists, do I need some relationship of location of the benchmarking utility to the app? I did manually browse for and select the game.

As far as the Santaduck stuff, again, I'm probably being thick, but what is applicable, how use it for retail version?

Lastly, in the old/ retail 2003 verison, if you choose package contents for the app, there would be revealed a standardized benchmarks folder. While this exists inside the 2004 app, I'm not sure how to implement...suggestions? I was successful running from command line in '03, but don't see the equivalent files to run in '04?

If I copy the timedemos from 03 to 04 benchamarks folder, would they work or would they end up calling up the 03 app again?

[emark]

ok, looked areound, and got the BenchUT running OK, but doesn't seem to generate a pre-set bot match, just dumps me into one...

will just read and try some things later to see if can run the old standards with the new game...the idea of the pre-fab ".ini" for benchut makes sense for best comparisons, but I like running it with my "ini" to compare effect of individual display changes....

I am curious to see what the sound and open gl changes amounted to in the final version...

interested to hear what others are finding/seeing with their machines...I got off track with the idea of benching for a bit as I was getting used to new maps and the few bugs/differences in the retail versionl... I have the sense that there will likely be a patch shortly for retail, as well as one for demo.

[gururafiki]

I got Unreal yesterday, and spent a few hours playing it. I must say that it is MUCH smoother then the demo was. I have noticed a few bugs already though; when driving a vehicle the sound of your footsteps running never goes away. Another, in some maps, when I jump into a manta, it will spin around in circles without me touching a control. The last one is minor, but sometimes the main menu graphics look as if someone took a wet rag to a wet painting and wiped down with it. Besides that, the game rocks! I really like taking out control points with the leviathan's big gun.

[RyanG3]

Originally posted by gururafiki:
I got Unreal yesterday, and spent a few hours playing it. I must say that it is MUCH smoother then the demo was. I have noticed a few bugs already though; when driving a vehicle the sound of your footsteps running never goes away. Another, in some maps, when I jump into a manta, it will spin around in circles without me touching a control. The last one is minor, but sometimes the main menu graphics look as if someone took a wet rag to a wet painting and wiped down with it. Besides that, the game rocks! I really like taking out control points with the leviathan's big gun.

I have the same problem with the Manta spinning in circles, not every-time but often enough to be very annoying!

[gururafiki]

Originally posted by RyanG3:
I have the same problem with the Manta spinning in circles, not every-time but often enough to be very annoying!

It doesn't end there. I also cannot host a lan game without unreal quitting AFTER the first level.

[ARK]

Using a USB headset with UT2004 and getting in-game chat to work with it doesnt work. The OS sees it fine and registers its working. But trying to talk in-game with the headset causes UT to freeze.

[RyanG3]

Who can we contact regarding UT2004 bugs??

[a2daj]

Originally posted by RyanG3:
Who can we contact regarding UT2004 bugs??

Bust out the manual and dig around the last few pages or go to MacSoft's site and you should find an email address to contact

Alternatively, you can manually submit bugs to Ryan Gordon's bugzilla system.

Many of the bugs already mentioned are already in.

[RyanG3]

Originally posted by a2daj:
Bust out the manual and dig around the last few pages or go to MacSoft's site and you should find an email address to contact

Alternatively, you can manually submit bugs to Ryan Gordon's bugzilla system.

Many of the bugs already mentioned are already in.

Thanks!

The Manta spins in circles always in Frostbite, on the other maps it seems to function correctly.

[jcadam]

egads!!

Just installed UT2004 on my MDD 867Mhz G4 DP with Radeon 8500 and 1.25 GB RAM.

Turned down the eye candy to Low/Normal on most settings and my average FPS is hanging out in the mid 20's. On some maps, Its around 10!!

How to fix?

Got a big tax return coming, so I can:

1) Buy a Radeon 9800 retail and slap it in my G4, maybe add some more RAM while I'm at it (don't know if that'd help).

2) say to heck with it, take most of my tax return and buy a new midrange G5 (whenever the new revs are announced) with a Radeon 9800 in it

3) Put together a PC w/ a Radeon 9800 and save a $1000 bucks.

Nah, I'll go with option 2. Or, if it looks to be a long wait for the new G5s, I could buy a retail 9800 now, and then just buy a stock config G5 later and swap out video cards.

[emark]

I have been really curious to sort this cache stuff out...VRAM (VAR) cache and the RAM cache...there have been some theories posted here, and I, nor anyone else has come through with benchmarking comparisons yet...(after finals...)...

Anyway, this has been eating at me, so I asked for some guidance...lo and behold, from the wizard himself:


1) Getting kicked off of servers for maps or playerskins:

RYAN'S RESPONSE:

The server-side of this just got updated, so you should slowly start
getting onto UTSecure servers now. We've also got a Mac-specific patch
in the works that'll fix it on the rest of the servers out there.



2) RAM:

I Hope I phrase this right, but how large is the largest map info....or
better yet, what size would comfortably hold the entire map& skins &
whatever comfortably and eliminate intragame disk access??? (understanding that one would probably want to leave at least 128 MBsfree for system etc. in the background...i'm guessing?? This may bemore important for folks w/ older machines and ATA/66 drives like me...

Open "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Unreal Tournament 2004
Demo/System/UT2004.ini" with a text editor.

Find the section titled [Engine.GameEngine]

You will find a line tha says CacheSizeMegs=

I believe by default it is set to 32 but you can change it
towhatever you want. If you have 640MB I would give it 512. So
yoursshould look like this when done.

CacheSizeMegs=512


RYAN'S RESPONSE:
I would say "don't touch this", but I haven't experimented with it much.
I definitely wouldn't put it as high as 512!




3) VRAM

OK, There are different cards out there with different VRAM, and
theremay be need to leave room for other functionality, but if the
defaultis 32, and you have a 64, or 128, or 256 MB card, is there
anyadvantage to manually ratcheting up the VAR size???

RYAN'S RESPONSE

If you're playing AS-Mothership and the game is REALLY slow, say, 5-10
FPS on the outer space portion of the map, try bumping VARsize up to 64.

VAR allocation is a true or false thing: it either has enough space and
you are on a fast path, or it doesn't, and everything grinds to a halt.
Setting it too high or too low will kill performance, because you'll
fall off the vertex_array_range codepath in either case. Mothership is
the only map I'm aware of that needs this bumped up.

In short: for most scenarios, don't touch it.

--ryan.



Sorry my formatting for quotes / html sucks, but busy and wanted to post info...don't have time to figure out why I'm screwing it up right now....

**** Not to be confusing, but I did test w/ 03 a little...I did have some success raising lowest frame rates running botmatch testing w/ 03, but avg and max didn't change much, but the lowest is most important...usually when the doo doo is hitting the fan.

Hopefully we all can contribute some benchmarking efforts soon.

...good luck

[RyanG3]

Has anyone heard when and if the extra Onslaught maps, Aridoom and Ascendancy, will be available for the Mac version of UT2004? They are currently only available for XP.

[a2daj]

Originally posted by RyanG3:
Has anyone heard when and if the extra Onslaught maps, Aridoom and Ascendancy, will be available for the Mac version of UT2004? They are currently only available for XP.

Link to a post with a link

[RyanG3]

Originally posted by a2daj:
Link to a post with a link

Wow! Thanks!!!

[Mr Scruff]

Is there likely to be a new demo with the sound bug fixed?

[a2daj]

Originally posted by Mr Scruff:
Is there likely to be a new demo with the sound bug fixed?

They want to do one, but i think right now they want to concentrate on patching the major issues with the retail release. There's a lot to fix.

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by a2daj:
They want to do one, but i think right now they want to concentrate on patching the major issues with the retail release. There's a lot to fix.

Ok cheers. Another thing I notice with the demo - I can see light sources through walls. Also the colouring on the menus is a bit odd.

Does anyone else get that?

[a2daj]

Originally posted by Mr Scruff:
Ok cheers. Another thing I notice with the demo - I can see light sources through walls. Also the colouring on the menus is a bit odd.

Does anyone else get that?

Did you get the first patch for the demo? I think that fixed the odd colored menus.

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by a2daj:
Did you get the first patch for the demo? I think that fixed the odd colored menus.

I thought I did - but I'll check again, thanks.

[olePigeon]

In another thread people were talking about how the Mac version relies on the CPU for processing the sound, while on the Windows version it offloads the sound processing to the sound card (not just with Unreal, but with many games.) Because of that, the Mac version (even with identical video cards and comparable CPU speed) will have significantly less frame rate.

Does anyone here have access to (or wouldn't mind buying, then returning if it doesn't work) a Midiman Revolution 7.1 sound card? They're only $120. I'm thinking of snagging one this summer to stick in my G5 if this would solve a lot of the problems with the newer games regarding the sound. Below is their description, note that it supports all the major sound technologies just like the SoundBlaster.

Revolution 7.1 is the ultimate audio upgrade for your PCI-based computer. Play DVDs and all your music in surround sound, make games more realistic, and record or mix your own music. Up to 7.1 surround sound output at high-definition 24-bit/192kHz fidelity insures that you�ll experience it all the way it was meant to sound�including streaming surround content from the Internet with Windows Media 9. You�ll also enjoy robust gaming experiences with popular 3D audio technologies such as Sensaura, EAX, DirectSound, and A3D.

[a2daj]

You can get the Revo 7.1 for less than $120. Check out a few more online stores. I got mine for $100 when they first came out. What's nice is that you can get 5.1 sound with the recent Unreal Engine games that use OpenAL. I've heard rumors some other games may get updated as well. Hopefully, more developers will take advantage of Apple's OpenAL work.

If you want instructions on how to get the games working with the new OpenAL release there's an older thread.

However, the way OS X's audio layer is setup, you won't get any cards that will take the sound processing off of the CPU. Maybe further down the road... but the Revo actually uses up more CPU cycles than on the PCs than other audio cards. I believe some of the 3D effects (like EAX) are done at the driver level, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

With the latest versions of UT2K3 and 4, the sound really shouldn't use up that much CPU. 3-5% CPU isn't that much. Some PC audio cards use that much CPU, so it's not going to be a big hit on performance. As long as the developers write good audio code, it shouldn't be that much of a performance.